Hirsi Ali stirs controversy from afar

Ayaan Hirsi Ali may not have made it to Australia as planned this week, but the outspoken critic of radical Islamists still managed to spark plenty of debate.

The Somali-born activist argues Islam as a religion and ideology developed in the seventh century needs urgent reform by moderate Muslims, and governments in Western countries like Australia should devote as much effort to tackling the spread of radical Islam as they do to fighting terrorists.

Hirsi Ali is a fierce opponent of Islamists and their support for sharia law. She wants all Islamic schools closed and stricter screening processes introduced to identify Muslim immigrants holding radical views.

Her views have sparked death threats from hardline Islamists for many years, but also generated criticism from more moderate Muslims in Australia who say Hirsi Ali stirs up hatred towards them.

Nearly 400 Australians signed an online petition ahead of Hirsi Ali's "Hero of Heresy" speaking tour of Australia and New Zealand, which was cancelled at the last minute due to security and organisational issues.

A group of six Muslim women including Melbourne chef and author Hana Assafiri also released a video in which they accused her being a "star" of Islamophobia, and using the language of white supremacists to profit from "an industry that exists to dehumanise Muslim women".

Assafiri says Hirsi Ali's views should be contested, and a more "sophisticated" conversation about Islam is needed in Australia, particularly at a time when One Nation Senator Pauline Hanson has renewed her calls for a ban on Muslim immigrants.

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"Her views lead to a spike in vitriol because there's no right of reply or engagement," Assafiri told AAP, adding that Hirsi Ali had declined an invitation to meet with the Muslim women behind the petition and video.

Hirsi Ali hit back by accusing her opponents in Australia of "carrying water" for Islamists and trying to stop her and others from speaking up for Muslim women who have been degraded by brutal acts including stoning, beatings and female genital mutilation that are permitted under sharia law.

Assafiri insists there was "nothing in that video that is for sharia or Islamic law" .

"It says you can't peddle hatred and fear mongering. We refute patriarchy and misogyny and push against Islamophobia. She stimulates it."

Hirsi Ali was raised a Muslim in Somalia where she was forced to undergo genital mutilation as a young child.

She was granted political asylum in the Netherlands in the early 1990s but later admitted to lying about some details on her application.

Her shock at the 7/11 terrorist attacks in the United States in 2001 prompted her to renounce Islam and two years later she was elected as an MP to the Dutch parliament after campaigning against the abuse of Muslim women and girls.

She moved to the US in 2006 amid controversy about how she was granted asylum, and following a death threat from radical Islamists who killed filmmaker Theo Van Gogh after the pair collaborated on a 2004 documentary critical of Islam's treatment of women.

Despite the controversy she attracts, Hirsi Ali is determined to speak out against atrocities committed under Islamic law.

"There is nothing, no principle, no law, no moral framework that degrades and dehumanises and robs women of their dignity than sharia law, or Islamic law," she told AAP in a phone interview.

One of her key messages to Western governments is the need to better educate themselves about the ways radical Islamic ideology is spread covertly through schools, prisons and non-government organisations.

She says those that spread their ideology in that way are as dangerous as violent jihadists because both want sharia law imposed across societies.

Hirsi Ali believes governments including Australia's should shut all Muslim schools, describing them as "terrible and cruel" places where radical Islamists indoctrinate children with the ways of jihad using taxpayers' money.

"I don't know right now of a radical Jewish or Catholic institutions that seek young hearts and minds to program with jihad and sharia," she said.

"And if they did the parents of Catholic and Jewish children would never stand for that.

"Muslim children are vulnerable in a multitude of ways and I don't think we should imprison them and their minds by putting them in Muslim schools."

But while Hirsi Ali opposes Muslim schools, she doesn't support renewed calls from One Nation Senator Pauline Hanson for a ban on Muslim immigrants.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has rejected the call, saying a ban would only serve to incite hatred towards Muslims which could then be used by terrorist groups like Islamic State to attract support.

Hirsi Ali says that while tighter vetting processes, like those proposed by US President Donald Trump, would help weed out Islamists, bans are unfair and every immigrant should be considered individually.

However she notes that radical Islamists don't care what policies Western governments impose.

"They care about one thing, which is to advance their agenda," she said.

"What matters though is ... trying to understand where the problem lies and then devise specific policies for that.

"You have to understand the problem before you start suggesting solutions."